from. I took the chalk and imitated him as near as I
could, but my work was poor beside his, as he had been learning for
some months, and could make the figures quite well and write a little.
Still I kept trying. Tom encouraging me and telling me that I would
learn in time. "Just keep trying," said he. When this first lesson was
over, I forgot to rub out the marks on the barn, and the next morning
when Old Master Jack, who happened to be at our home just at that time,
went out there and saw the copy and my imitation of it, he at once
raised great excitement by calling attention to the rude characters and
wanting to know who had done that. I was afraid to own that I had done
it; but old Master Jack somehow surmised that it was Tom or I, for he
said to Boss: "Edmund, you must watch those fellows, Louis and Thomas,
if you don't they will get spoilt--spoilt. They are pretty close to town
here--here." Tom and I laughed over this a good deal and how easily we
slipped out of it, but concluded not to stop trying to learn all we
could. Tom always said: "Lou, I am going to be a free man yet, then we
will need some education; no, let us never stop trying to learn." Tom
was a Virginian, as I was, and was sold from his parents when a mere
lad. Boss used to write to his parents (owners) occasionally, that his
people might hear from him. The letters were to his mother, but sent in
care of the white folks. Tom had progressed very fast in his secret
studies, and could write enough to frame a letter. It seems it had been
over a year since Boss had written for him, but nothing was said until
one morning I heard Boss telling Tom to come to the barn to be whipped.
He showed Tom three letters which he had written to his mother, and this
so startled him that he said nothing. I listened breathlessly to each
word Boss said: "Where did you learn to write?" asked he, "and when did
you learn? How long have you been writing to your mother?" At that
moment he produced the three letters which Tom had written. Boss, it
seems, had mistrusted something, and spoke to the postmaster, telling
him to stop any letters which Tom might mail for Virginia to his mother.
The postmaster did as directed, for slaves had no rights which
postmasters were bound to respect; hence, the letters fell into the
master's hands instead of going to their destination. Tom, not hearing
from his first letter, wrote a second, then a third, never dreaming that
they had been intercepte